PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Mitra Chem is solving three problems:

Shifting the Western electric vehicle and energy storage industries' battery portfolio towards safer, cheaper, and cleaner iron-based battery cathodes
Building production capacity in the USA to offset production asset overconcentration in China
Accelerating by >90% the lab-to-market timeline for a portfolio of battery materials through a proprietary machine learning advantage

Vivas Kumar is the Cofounder and CEO of Mitra Chem. Previously, he was a senior manager in Tesla's Battery Team, where he was the lead commercial negotiator for strategic contracts representing billions of dollars in aggregate multi-year spend along the battery materials supply chain (the company's largest BOM category). Throughout his career, he has conducted commercial negotiations and handled partnerships with executive and senior government counterparties in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. Vivas earned degrees in engineering at Rice University and an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

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PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
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Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

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